UPSC Mains 2020 GS Paper 4 Q12: model answer
Migrant workers have always remained at the socio-economic margins of our society, silently serving as the instrumental labour force of urban economics. The pandemic has brought them into national focus. On announcement of a countrywide lockdown, a very large number of migrant workers decided to move back from their places of employment to their native villages. The non-availability of transport created its own problems. Added to this was the fear of starvation and inconvenience to their families. This caused, the migrant workers to demand wages and transport facilities for returning to their villages. Their mental agony was accentuated by multiple factors such as a sudden loss of livelihood, possibility of lack of food and inability to assist in harvesting their rabi crop due to not being able to reach home in time. Reports of inadequate response of some districts in providing the essential boarding and lodging arrangements along the way multiplied their fears. You have learnt many lessons from this situation when you were tasked to oversee the functioning of the District Disaster Relief Force in your district. In your opinion what ethical issues arose in the current migrant crisis? What do you understand by an ethical care giving state? What assistance can the civil society render to mitigate the sufferings of migrants in similar situations?
What the question wants
Discuss the ethical issues in the migrant crisis during the lockdown, explain an ethical care-giving State, and suggest how civil society can help migrants in such situations.
How to structure it
Issues, caring State, civil society.
- Ethical issues
- Ethical care-giving State
- Role of civil society
How to think it through
Issues: dignity, right to life and livelihood (Art 21), invisibility of migrants (no data), lack of planning before lockdown, inter-state coordination, discrimination at destination, wage theft, starvation, women and children, Suo motu SC case 2020 (free food, transport), One Nation One Ration Card later, e-Shram portal 2021 (over 30 crore registrations). Caring State: care ethics (Gilligan, Noddings), welfare State, Gandhi's talisman, anticipatory, inclusive, dignity-based, responsive. Civil society: community kitchens, transport help, information, legal aid, health, data collection, counselling, job matching; gurdwaras, NGOs, Gurdwara langars.
Model answer
Stakeholders
- Migrant workers and their families; employers; source and destination States; the district relief force; civil society.
Dilemmas
- Public health (lockdown) vs livelihood and dignity; speed vs planning.
Options
- Enforce lockdown only; open movement without plans; protect health while caring for migrants.
The lockdown was announced to save lives. For millions of migrants, the first threat to life was not the virus but hunger and a long walk home.
Ethical issues
- Dignity and right to life: food, shelter and safe travel were not assured, despite Article 21.
- Invisibility: no reliable data on who the migrants were or where they lived, so help could not be targeted.
- Planning failure: a sudden lockdown without arrangements for those with no savings.
- Wage theft and insecurity: unpaid wages and eviction by landlords.
- Unequal burden: women, children and the elderly suffered most.
- Coordination: source and destination States blamed each other. The Supreme Court took up the issue on its own in 2020 and ordered food and free travel.
An ethical care-giving State
- Anticipates need instead of reacting late.
- Sees the invisible: it knows its vulnerable citizens and reaches them first.
- Protects dignity: relief as a right, not charity.
- Listens and adjusts: quick correction when policies hurt the weak.
- Builds lasting systems: portable ration through One Nation One Ration Card and registration on the e-Shram portal are examples of lessons turned into policy.
How civil society can help
- Food and shelter: community kitchens, gurdwara langars and temple kitchens along routes.
- Information: helplines in migrants' languages on trains, buses and relief.
- Transport and registration: help migrants register for special trains and buses.
- Health and counselling: medical camps and mental health support.
- Legal aid: to recover wages and protect against eviction.
- Data: volunteers can help build lists that the administration lacks.
- Livelihood: job matching on return.
A caring State is judged not by its plans for the comfortable but by its arrangements for those who have nowhere to go.
Draw: Three concentric circles: State (rights and systems), civil society (reach and compassion), community (shelter and information), around the migrant.
Keywords, cases and data to drop in
migrant crisis, lockdown 2020, Article 21, dignity, invisibility, wage theft, Supreme Court suo motu 2020, care ethics, anticipatory governance, One Nation One Ration Card, e-Shram, community kitchens, langars, helplines, legal aid, mental health.
Where most answers lose marks
- Writing only about the State and ignoring the third sub-question on civil society.
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Fresh examples from current affairs
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19 Oct 2026Learn the concept
Question text as printed in the official UPSC Civil Services (Main) question paper. The model answer is original Battle IAS work; use it to learn structure, not to memorise.
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